


You Deserve To Get To Know (The Person You're Trying Your Damndest To Let Go)

by Snap_crackle_spock



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Just some classic I-Miss-These-Losers content, Mortis (Star Wars), Set post-Mortis arc, What? Me? Posting a one-shot centered around Anakin and Ahsoka's bond?, ground breaking.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23057638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snap_crackle_spock/pseuds/Snap_crackle_spock
Summary: Here’s the thing about Anakin Skywalker: from what Ahsoka’s learned –and she’s learned a lot– he’ll either give you 0 or 100. All or nothing. Obi-Wan is a great mediator, excellent at playing the long game and not showing his hand right away. That had never been Anakin. In her years as his Padawan, Ahsoka has watched him back out of treaties on gut instincts, fight in the front lines with his soldiers not for their approval or some kind of political advantage but because it’s just how he assumed it should be, and fiercely make everything about himself while never being selfish. She’d never seen him put himself first in any way that mattered, fighting for his loved ones before anyone else.And because of this, because she knew him, she knew that no matter how much she danced around the subject and tried to get him to bring it up first, he never would. He would never act like something that he could deal with alone was more important than anything that was going on with her or Obi-Wan or Padme or even Artoo.“Do you remember going to the Dark Side?”
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 5
Kudos: 121





	You Deserve To Get To Know (The Person You're Trying Your Damndest To Let Go)

**Author's Note:**

> This kind of turned into more than I'd intended but fuck me if I can plan things out ahead of time.

Ahsoka felt warm. She hadn’t stopped feeling this warmth since she’d died.

Been brought back to life. 

Had her life force combined with the living embodiment of the Light Side with Anakin as a conductor in order to keep her alive. 

She also felt cold. She hadn’t stopped feeling this coldness since she’d gone to the Dark Side.

Been forced to go to the Dark Side.

Been possessed with the living embodiment of the Dark Side and fought both of the people she considered to be her mentors and won and then died when she wasn’t useful anymore. 

A lot had happened in the past few days. 

Before, she’d had no reference point. She’d witnessed the Dark Side as a third party only. In the same way that she hadn’t understood rules of the card games that the clones played in the mess hall until they’d invited her to start playing with them and she learned on the fly, she’d never understood what it really was like to not be a Jedi. To not be on the righteous path that she’d been on for most of her life. 

Being the one left to fix the ship wasn’t what she’d wanted. She’d wanted to leave and pick a new fight and just forget about everything. She didn’t want to think about how she could feel a war brewing inside of her, where the Light and Dark were both battling for dominance. And she knew that the Light was winning. She knew because, for the most part, she felt like her old self. When she tapped into the Force, the energy she conducted didn’t feel rotten and make her skin crawl and exist like a scream about to break from her throat. 

But it wasn’t quite the same.

Using the Force also didn’t feel like stepping into a crystalline lake anymore. It didn’t feel like a burning star or a tree growing in a second. 

Now, it felt like an exhale, like going through her forms, like getting a particularly good roll in a game of dice. It was no longer righteous or holy or intangible, but instead realistic and more herself than ever. 

And she couldn’t talk to anybody about it. 

That’s what really sucked about the whole thing, the fact that there was nobody to talk to about it. Obi-Wan was, despite her respect and closeness with him, still a Jedi Master on the Council. He was allied with the Order in such a way that she became immediately aware that telling him about the small part of her that was remaining stubbornly in the Dark was not an option. Always a pillar of good and piety, set above for them to look up to. 

As for Anakin… He’d had his own problems to deal with on Mortis. Even from the ship, even with the Force not working correctly, she felt when he switched over. When she watched him leave to confront the Father, she’d kept a tight hold of their bond, just as reassurance. Because of what had happened with the Daughter, with him being a conduit to bring her back, it felt like the invisible line Ahsoka had drawn as a child that connected them was stronger than ever. While she was working away in the belly of their ship, she could sense the worry the Father sparked, hear traces of the famous Qui-Gon Jinn echo like they were passed through to her next. For that glimpse of time, that bond was her lifeline because it reminded her that things were still just how they’d always been and everything was normal. 

And it really did hurt so much to feel that bond rescind and wither when he switched to the Dark Side, even if it was just so brief. The part of her, the new part that was entirely Light, wouldn’t let any such contact with something so contaminated live. It made it that, for the first time since she’d ever really known him and was in full control of herself, she couldn’t sense Anakin out there. He was just another being in a galaxy full of other beings and she was alone. On a ship. 

When Anakin and switched over and Ahsoka couldn’t find him through the Force the way she had grown so used to being able to, she felt like she was drowning. Burning. She felt like she, herself, was being forced to recover from even brushing with something so wrong, even though she could still feel the Daughter’s influence still battling with the remainder of the Son’s inside her own essence. 

She kept fixing the ship because she didn’t know what else to do. 

And when Obi-Wan told her to break it all over again and run to make sure Anakin didn’t get off-world, it felt like a betrayal. Because this thing that she’d been working on _this_ _thing_ for so long and poured so much time and energy into _this_ _thing_ and now she was going to have to do something that would hurt _this thing_ and she knew it was for a good reason but isn’t she still allowed to mourn the fact that despite all her best efforts and being told to make it work in the first place she was the one who was going to have to be the one that broke it?

When she saw him for that brief second that she was slipping out and he was coming in, hiding up in the ceiling of the ship as if he was the enemy, she knew that things were wrong. Even if he couldn’t see her, any other day he would’ve known she was there just by her presence in the Force alone. The fact that he didn’t even think to look up cemented in the fact that this was no longer her Master but someone– _thing_ else. The way he moved was not like the noble Jedi Knight she’d seen on the battlefield or the friend she’d laughed with while piloting, but a lumbering, cold creature with no discernable care for anything around him. Ahsoka was reached out with the Force, just a little, and before even a second had passed she retracted her offer, feeling nothing but coldness and aggression and fear. So much fear. It hurt her to see him like this, and she wanted to do something to make it right. 

But Jedi don’t get attached, they follow orders. 

So she took a crucial piece of the ship and ran. 

And it was only when she felt Anakin come back to where he had been before that she stopped and caught her breath. She let their bond sew itself back together and then tried not to think too hard about how there was still a black hole in the middle that wouldn’t mend. 

* * *

He was sitting silently on the couch, fiddling with Artoo’s wires. As Jedi, she, Anakin, and Obi-Wan were afforded the luxury of two private bedrooms and ‘freshers, conjoined with a sitting room. (They took turns on the couch). (This flight was Obi-Wan’s turn and he was upset about it).

The novelty of being allowed to roam on the cruisers wherever she wanted due to her rank had worn off on Ahsoka sooner than she wanted to admit. There were only so many meetings about cargo space that she dropped in on because of a whim that she could handle. So, instead, she tended to find herself in the mess hall with the clones –who all saw her as a sister the way she saw them as brothers– or the private quarters. She assumed that the same process had been followed by both Anakin and Obi-Wan, because they were usually there as well.

They hadn’t talked about Mortis since it had happened. Ahsoka wasn’t sure if the memories were sticking with her a little bit better because she brought a piece with her, or if they were just all trying to avoid an uncomfortable conversation. Knowing the Jedi way, it was the second. 

But it was becoming more of an issue than she’d ever wanted it to be. Not a physical hindrance, but nonetheless a weight. It felt like every ten seconds she would look up from her datapad to stare at Anakin muttering to the wires. She felt less like she was relaxing in her limited spare time and more like she was on a stakeout, studying her target to see what made him tick. Only, she knew what made Anakin tick, and had known for years now. 

And yet… she still felt a disconnect, even though it had been days since their experience on Mortis. Beyond just their redefined bond, she could sense not only an underlying frustration within him, but a panic. A fear. It worried her. 

She’d talked to Obi-Wan about Mortis, after he’d privately discussed things with Anakin, and he’d said that Anakin was “not entirely with memory”, which she took to mean that there were gaps in her Master’s recollection of the events on the strange planet. She didn’t have to ask to know which events he meant. 

“Master,” she said before she’d even noticed she’d spoken. Anakin looked up, a small piece of metal he’d been using the Force to levitate falling onto the couch. 

“Yeah, Snips?” He asked, a bit of worry touching his voice. She’d noticed the way he and Obi-Wan had reverted a little back to the earlier days of her time with them, where they’d feel the need to keep a constant eye on her, as if she was just a kid they were babysitting each mission. It didn’t take a lot of guesswork for her to understand that they were just concerned, worried that something was lingering from her time alone with the Son, that some root of the Dark Side had taken ahold of her. She wished she could talk about how much of that was true with the only person who could possibly understand. 

“Just wanted to know what you’re working on, that’s all,” she shrugged, lying through her teeth but not sure what she actually had wanted in the first place.

“Nothing, really,” he laughed, more to himself than anyone, “just more maintenance than Artoo really needs because at least this is more interesting than listening to Obi-Wan discuss trade routes with the Techno Union.”

“He has been gone a long time,” she pondered half-heartedly.

“He can handle himself,” Anakin assured her, “and if he can’t then he would’ve sent someone for us by now.”

“Yeah,” she nodded, glancing back at the same line of text she’d been blankly staring at for the past half hour, “you’re right.”

“What is it?” He asked after a second, and looking back up she saw that bored intensity that informed her they wouldn’t be done with this conversation anytime soon. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” she retorted, dancing around the issue.

“Something’s obviously weighing on you,” he crossed his arms and settled into his seat before a flicker of worry crossed his face, “is it about Mortis?”

Here’s the thing about Anakin Skywalker: from what Ahsoka’s learned –and she’s learned a lot– he’ll either give you 0 or 100. All or nothing. Obi-Wan is a great mediator, excellent at playing the long game and not showing his hand right away. That had never been Anakin. In her years as his Padawan, Ahsoka has watched him back out of treaties on gut instincts, fight in the front lines with his soldiers not for their approval or some kind of political advantage but because it’s just how he assumed it should be, and fiercely make everything about himself while never being selfish. She’d never seen him put himself first in any way that mattered, fighting for his loved ones before anyone else. 

And because of this, because she knew him, she knew that no matter how much she danced around the subject and tried to get him to bring it up first, he never would. He would never act like something that he could deal with alone was more important than anything that was going on with her or Obi-Wan or Padme or even Artoo. 

“Do you remember going to the Dark Side?”

You could hear a pin drop with how quickly all the noise in the room left. It’s like someone cracked open a window to the vast emptiness of space. 

If she hadn’t been raised to suppress this instinct, Ahsoka would be second-guessing herself to Yavin and back. If not for the silence and the tension and the coldness than for the way that the bond that she’d worked so hard over the past few days to pretend was totally fine and totally not broken at all felt like it snapped shut all over again. For the look in Anakin’s eyes when she finally made eye contact, that swarm of hurt and confusion and anger and utter blankness. 

But since she definitely _wasn’t_ feeling any of that, she sat there and held her ground, trying her best to continue to meet his gaze. 

“Yeah.”

A twist. 

“Oh,” was all Ahsoka could get out before the tidal wave began to pour, “Obi-Wan said– you never mentioned anything– I felt the way that it had been cut out from your Force signature. You never made it seem like a big deal.”

“I didn’t want it to be,” he said, breaking the eye contact Ahsoka had just fought tooth and nail for and returning to fiddle with Artoo’s mechanics. This was his code for _we’re done here._ Ahsoka could feel how much he wanted to be done with it. 

“Why?”

He didn’t look up at her, but she could see the way his jaw clenched, how he frowned a little more. Jedi weren’t supposed to dwell on their emotions they were supposed to accept them and let them pass, not letting them affect the world around themselves. Ahsoka had always been the more diligent between the two of them, and had always been the first to bring up how the Code would address a situation. This wasn’t their usual routine. Nothing about the past few days had been usual, though. 

“I can deal with my shit, Snips.” He was usually cautious about cursing around her, except in Huttese which he thought she couldn’t understand. There were lighter situations where he’d let his guard down and not care, but despite what some Council members would think he did care about being a good Master. Ahsoka knew that being a Knight, a Master, a Council member was all he wanted, and it was for all of the right reasons. Protect everyone he loved, especially before himself. 

“I’m asking you to stop, though,” she got up from her chair and moved to sit next to him on the couch, staying on the opposite side like the tense energy radiating off of him would bite her if she got too close. “Anakin, it’s okay to want to talk about something like that.”

“No, it’s not,” and she knew it wasn’t intentional but through the bond, she caught flashes of other worlds; Naboo, Tatooine. Other people; a woman who looked faintly like Anakin, Padme, creatures with cloth wrapped around their faces lying in the sand. She became aware that maybe this wasn’t just about Mortis. 

“Anakin, I _need_ you to talk about it because if you don’t then I’m going through this alone with nobody else. And if you’re not going to be here to tell me that no matter what happened, if I went to the Dark Side because it was me or someone else, that I can still belong in this Order, then the only other reference point I have are the people we fight every day. I need you to tell me that what happened on Mortis doesn’t make me one of them.”

For another, horrific second, it was pin-drop, window-cracked, blackness and void silent. Then all at once, Ahsoka felt a pair of arms wrap around her tightly, reassurance race through their bond, and a sudden understanding that this was the next step. 

* * *

Anakin didn’t fully remember what had happened, just that the Son had shown him a future that had made him abandon the Light for a brief period of time. He didn’t remember the exact events, he just knew that the gap in his memory was pitch black and aggressive and still there. 

Ahsoka could feel the rest, because there was definitely more, still buried in his head, whether because someone else was pushing them down or he just didn’t want to address it, but it felt like a start. Like a way for her to understand her Master in a way she knew few others. 

In the end, she understood that trying to be a holy and infallible individual, like the Daughter, was impossible. The proof that Anakin could have gone through something so similar to her and still be the Jedi she’d come to respect so much was evidence enough. 

It wasn’t until years after she left the Order, after Order 66 and Fulcrum and watching her Kyber Crystals shift from green to white that she understood, though.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah the Bad Bunch is lovely, Echo is wonderful, the animated one-takes are spectacular, and seeing Obi-Wan Padme and Anakin all interacting is heartwarming, but where's She?


End file.
